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Cool Weather App for Star Wars Fans

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Screen shot 2009-12-28 at 6.12.16 AM

There are many great weather apps out there but nothing comes close to the coolness factor of Tom Scott’s weather app which was made for Star Wars fan. You see, apart from telling you the weather in a particular place which you enter on the site’s search box, the site also gives you different backgrounds and commentaries mentioning the different locations in the Star Wars universe.

So depending on which city you’re from, you will get weather commentaries such as:

“Oh, 9C Fair. It’s like Naboo out there. Temperate, dry and fairly pleasant.”

“Hmm, 9C, Partly Cloudy?, It’s like Endor out there. Temperate but grey and cloudy”

Well, of course aside from the commentaries, the weather report is actually pretty accurate because the site fetches weather data from Yahoo Weather.

And while you’re at it, you might want to check out Tom Scott’s other creation which includes – Two Drums and Cymbal Fall Off a Cliff, The Corruscant Juggling Club and more. They are pretty cool stuff and makes you think that this guy is really enjoying his work.

Who is Tom Scott? Here’s a short bio:

Tom Scott is a geek comedian. He won the 2008 Kevin Greening Award for Creativity at the Student Radio Awards, once got in trouble with the Cabinet Officefor his version of their Preparing for Emergencies site, and has been described as a”sometime internet funny man” by The Register.

He runs the British part of International Talk Like A Pirate Day, and accidentally got elected as president of his students’ union after running as “Mad Cap’n Tom”.

His work has been shown on BBC One, Channel 4, and at the paraflows net-art exhibition in Vienna.

He also once got five gold runs on ‘Blockbusters’.

So, go check out the the Star Wars Weather app and tell us, how’s the weather out there?

Via Download Squad

FarmVille, FML, Swine Flu Top Facebook’s Status Updates in 2009

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Following the tradition of year-end list, Facebook released its Memology: Top  which according to the Facebook blog is a study of how “memes” or new ideas and trends spread on Facebook, through member’s status updates and wall postings. Facebook mapped the top trending words and phrases in the U.S. Facebook members to come up with this 2009 list.

If you’ve been following similar annual trend list released by other websites including Google, Twitter and YouTube where the top trends are mostly entertainment and global affairs related, the top trends on Facebook clings more on personal topics. This is of course understandable since Facebook networks are more personalized.

Here’s Facebook’s explanation on how they came up with the list:

To generate the list, we started by looking at how many times each phrase with length from one-to-four words occurred in U.S. Facebook status updates, then we computed the rate at which each phrase occurred in 2009 compared to 2008. Using some data-mining methods detailed here, we analyzed important bursts in activity around words and series of words to find the key trends for the year. All personally identifiable information was removed from the status updates to conduct this analysis, and no one at Facebook read the individual status updates.

So, here goes Facebook’s Top 5 Status Trends of 2009:

1. Facebook Applications – specific words: Farmville, Farm Town, Social Living

2. FML – specific words: F_ _ k My Life

3. Swine Flu – specific words – Flu, Swine Flu, H1N1

4. Celebrity Deaths – specific words: Michael Jackson, Patrick Swayze, Billy Mays

5. Family – specific words: family, mom, dad, son, daughter, kids

iPhone, iPod Market Distribution – Japan is Catching Up Fast!

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Admob iPhone users

With 78 million units reportedly shipped by Apple, have you ever wondered where those iPhones and iPods are located right now? Mobile advertising company knows their geographic distribution and they just released a report showing this.

According to the report, obviously most of the iPhones and iPods shipped by Apple are with U.S. consumers, 50% of the 78 million in fact. Now for the rest of the other 50% of the 78 million units shipped, majority of those are Japan, France, Australia and Canada.  These countries are showing tremendous growth in terms of iPhone and iPod units being shipped and sold to consumers.

Interestingly, according to the AdMob data from Jan-Nov 2009, iPhone and iPod userbase growth in Japan surged to more than 300%.  It looks like our friends in Japan are starting to love the iPhone and iPod music players this year.

Other highlights of the AdMob study are the following:

  • 23 countries got more than 100,000 unique Apple visitors
  • unique Apple users  located outside of the U.S. increased to 50% from 39% in January
  • 71% of unique Apple users in November were for iPhone while 29% were for iPod

With reports that the Motorola Droid is catching up with iPhone sales, AdMob’s data just prove one thing – the Droid is still has a long way to go before it reaches the iPhone’s status.

Playboy Has an App for That Too!

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playboyappicon_thumbHold your horses fellas! Before you start grabbing the Playboy iPhone which just got approved, let me tell you as early as now that Apple is not supporting mobile pornography. The Playboy app was approved for resale at the iTunes Store because of the merits of the magazine’s articles. Yeah, right!

And for technology’s sake we are covering the release of Playboy’s iPhone app here in DB. In fact, I’m about to tell you its features. So please read on first before you start installing the Playboy iPhone app.

So, what does this iPhone app has to offer for $1.99? It’s basically a “stripped” down version of Playboy magazine. You’ll get to read most of the magazine’s article columns such as Playboy Interview, Playbor Advisor, 20 Questions, Party Jokes, Fashion and more.

And most importantly Playboy iPhone app also got the magazine’s bread and butter – Playmate of the Month but the Playmates are not going to be in their full nude poses. Bleh! You didn’t really expect Apple to go lax with their Anti-Nudity policy, right? So, what you will see as part of the Playmate of the Month feature are the playmates’ bios, data sheet, preview picture and behind the scenes video.

Still interested with this iPhone app even without the nudity aspect? I’m sure you’re still are.  Now is the time to get the Playboy iPhone App. Have Fun folksies!

Via Krapps

Google Docs get liberated with mass download capability

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google-docs-exportAs the data you store on Google’s servers is still yours, not theirs, it’s good to see the Internet giant taking seriously your right to easily move it around without being tied to using Google’s services forever once you’ve decided to start.

To that end, “data liberation” (as Google calls it) has extended to Google Docs.

You can now ZIP up and export multiple documents in multiple formats all at once instead of doing it one at a time.

There is a content limit of 500MB on each download, but that’s apparently around 20,000 files so it shouldn’t be an inconvenience.

File export options include (depending on original format) Microsoft Word and Excel, HTML, Open Document and Spreadsheet, PDF, Rich Text Format or plain text.

Via

6 Websites to Make Music Online

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Whether you are a music artist or someone just wanting to kill some time, I am sure you will have fun with the websites listed below.

1. JamStudio: An online music creation tool with a very user friendly interface. Simply input the notes, choose the instruments and hear the results.

jamstudio

2. DubStep: Created by LoopLabs, this online music mixer will let you create a wide range of electronic tracks. It comes with a big database of drum sounds, synths, bass sounds, keyboard and sound effects. Just mix them together and see what will come out.

dubstep

3. Tony-B Machine: Quite an addictive little piece of software. You get a melody playing in the background, and you can press different buttons to add effects, vocals, change the key and so on. Use your keyboard and you will start feeling the groove.

tony-b-machine

4. Noteflight: If you are a serious musician, Noteflight will allow you to create compositions online. It basically lets you create, store and hear to music notations online, with surprising quality.

noteflight

5. CreatingMusic: If you have young kids, this website is a nice resource to get them interested in music. They have a Java application that will let your kids make music online. The interface is very simple: you just need to select the instrument is draw the sound on the screen.

creating-music

6. Beatbox DJ Mixer: A fun little tool that lets you mix tracks online. You need to choose songs among their preloaded collection, but there are some nice songs there. After that you mix the track controlling different channels, and you can save the results.

beatbox-online